The -Shopping- Experience

Well, I had a short-lived night, as we wound up around 2 am at the bar. Michael and (newcomer) Josh rapped on my door at 8 am, apparently starved and ready to go to the store. So I dragged myself up, showered super fast, and we were out the door. Boy, were we unprepared for what came next. We located the store with no problems, but inside was another matter. Stores here are so small, due to them being inside old buildings, that getting around other customers is difficult. It's even more difficult when you can't read anything on the labels, unless it's an identifiable brand. I spent ten minutes trying to find cream to put in my coffee but couldn't seem to locate it anywhere. So I finally asked a woman who was stocking in the dairy area if she could help me find cream. Bad. Not only did she not really speak English, but I thoroughly confused her by trying to explain what I wanted. Cream, milk, cows. Nope. I'll never forget the look on her face as she repeated, in an incredulous voice, "Cows?" Oh my. Needless to say, we had to find another worker who fortunately (for me) understood what I was asking. I now know the words for cream (smetana), milk (mleko), and cow (krava), but still don't understand why they stock their cream next to the cottage cheese instead of near the milk. Following that, Josh and I hunted all over attempting to find marinara sauce, which I finally discovered hanging up in a refrigerated area, alongside vegetables and fruits. Perhaps they have some logic in their grouping, but I don't see it... Our final discovery of the hour was that here you sack your own groceries, and if you don't bring a bag to put them in, you have to buy one! The checkers were obviously exasperated at us as we apparently were holding up the line, but we managed to make it out of there in one piece and with our various sundries in tow. The only downfall of getting here early was that our metro passes didn't start working until the 15th, so we had to carry everything back to the apartment instead of being able to take the tram. And amazingly enough, my full bag (eggs, cheese, bread, fruit, sauce, cream, lettuce, pasta, etc).. cost less than $20. Oh, if only shopping was so cheap in America...

Having deposited my groceries in their appropriate places, I commenced to crash for a couple more hours until around lunchtime, when everyone met to go to the castle. Andy explained to us that we would have to walk all the way to Narodni trida (about 5-7 minutes from here) to buy our tram tickets. He also told us we needed to make sure that we validated the tickets as soon as getting on the tram, so we wouldn't get pulled off and fined 700 crowns (the equivalent being $35). So, we hiked to the station, bought our tickets and climbed on the tram with the correct number. It was so crowded that we had to validate tickets assembly-line style, with everyone passing their slip to me so I could put it in the little yellow box to be stamped. We rode along, standing and chatting, until something in our conversation caused a man to tell us that we were on the right tram, but going the wrong direction. We piled out at the next stop and caught the tram going the other way. It was good I had validated all of the tickets, since we got checked within one stop going the other direction. We were convinced that someone on the previous tram had called in the stupid group of Americans, but no matter how carefully the ticket-checker scrutinized us, our tickets were valid and he left us alone.

We arrived at Pohorelece (prononuced "po-hoj-e-lets"), which is a small square situated above the castle. The name means "the scene of fire." Pohorolece was founded as a suburb to the Castle District in the 14th century, and it burned during the Hussite Wars, the big fire in Prague in 1541, and once more during the War of the Austrian Succession in 1742. Andy had suggested that we check out the monastary and take pictures of the view before walking down the hill to the castle. (Strahov Monastery, Castle District) We stopped to find a bathroom and then to eat, as some people were really hungry. Allison and I split this wonderful sandwich that had ham, cheese, tomatoes and onions, and everyone had some sort of pastry. It was good we stopped to eat, as it took us a bit to find the entrance to the Monastery (it looks like stairs leading off the road to a small courtyard). After poking our heads inside the monastery, we opted to take the tour at a later point and head on to the castle. The view from just outside the monastery was absolutely breathtaking...